Found
by Bainaku
Summary: Princess Bubblegum makes an unexpected discovery during a shopping trip that might just open doors she thought closed to her forever.  Complete!
1. Part I

**A/N**: The first part of… I dunno how many other parts yet. We'll see where the story goes. =)

Written for stardustwitch on Tumblr, who requested… well, you'll see!

**Words: **2,656

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**FOUND – [Part I]**

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Bubblegum liked to shop.

While not her most obsessive pastime, it was still an event she penciled into her schedule—when kidnappings by the Ice King didn't disrupt it—at least once a month. She took great pleasure in her occasional weekend trips to the markets across Ooo: not especially because she liked to fill her closets, but more so because she found bargain-hunting—heck, bargaining period—a wonderful stress relief. There was something deeply gratifying about procuring a skirt that, while only mere coins in the thrift alleys of the Fire Kingdom, fetched what amounted to an organ's sum elsewhere.

Not to mention the sights, the sounds, the _learning experiences_! Bubblegum prided herself on her keen sense of cultural awareness, and there was no better way to keep abreast of regional trends and ethnic habits than to wander for hours in foreign spending hotspots. She discovered the nebulous he's-looking-at-your-butt elbow rub from an afternoon spent people-watching in a bazaar in Lumpy Space. Purple was sacred to the Vegetable Folk—scars to the nomads at the fringe of Red Rock Pass. Imps tugged their ears when they lied. Elves didn't. A wizard's power could be divined by the blueness of his skin: sky-colored meant he might pull a rabbit out of a hat at best, and verging toward purple suggested the strength to shift even the weather. Turquoise sorcerers, lastly, were best employed at bar mitzvahs. They conjured excellent cakes.

Of all the things Bubblegum gleaned from her travels through Ooo's malls, pavilions, souks, and street fairs, though, one of the most beneficial was not a cultural tidbit but a honed skill: how to spot the best shops a mile distant. They gave off the same shivery vibe no matter their location, those shops, and they tended to look similar too: dusty front windows cluttered with knickknacks and gewgaws. Signs faded. Silver bells in the doorjambs, _tink-tink-tinkling _with the entry of the occasional—rare—customers.

Browsing a market at the Ice Kingdom's fringe today, Bubblegum stood before a particularly promising specimen of a place. Grimy display window full of crap: check. A wooden doll missing a mouth glared silently at her from said window. The princess glanced aloft at the establishment's sign, her breath fogging the air over her scarf's ruff, and found its name nothing but a dingy smear there. Double-check.

Pressing her palm flat to the peeling paint on the shop's door, Bubblegum pushed. Waited. And—

_Tink-tink-tink._

"Check-check-_check_," replied Bubblegum cheerily under her breath, and stepped inside.

A gust of warm air ruffled her scarf back against her cheeks. "Close the door!" yelped a voice nearby. "Hurry now—you'll let the fire out of the place and it's a thorncluster to heat!"

Bubblegum hurried to comply, yanking shut the door at her back. The bell above it barked a resounding _TING_. As its echoes dwindled, the princess pulled free her scarf and sighed, slapping her feet sharp against the shop's mat to rid them of slush. Only when her boots squeaked clean did she turn her attention aright.

The shop was narrow and curved partway like a fallen comma, lit with strategically placed lanterns and populated too, if the swaying clumps on the ceiling were any indication, by a healthy contingent of cobwebs. Shelves stretched to the rafters and as far back as Bubblegum could see. The nearest contained what looked like Ooo's largest array of cigar boxes. Also, toy cars.

"Help you, miss?" asked the voice from before. Bubblegum blinked aside and found a thin-faced, green-skinned man looking at her from between two other shelves (stacked with clocks and baking pans respectively). The man's eyes trailed aloft: saw Bubblegum's tiara. Widened. "Majesty," he corrected. "A pleasure!"

Smiling, the princess gave a pish-pish wave with a mittened hand and said, "No, all mine! I'm just perusing your wares. …er." Glancing at yet another shelf, this one full of what looked suspiciously like turkey basters, Bubblegum chanced, "What exactly _are _your wares?"

The man emerged from his hollow with a sheepish grin. "Trinkets and sundries, Majesty," he allowed, dusting off his sleeves and adjusting his tie. A closer look at his face revealed fangs: slit pupils too, and pointed ears. An imp. "We are a unique business," he continued. "A specialty shop, if you will."

"Oh?" Bubblegum pursued dubiously.

"Oh!" he agreed. Flinging out an arm in a flourish, he dislodged a cascade of rubber ducks from a box on a ledge and muttered as they squeaked and squacked in all directions, "While this stuff is admittedly what _most _people would consider junk, everything you see in here once mattered very much to someone. Yes," he insisted as Bubblegum's doubtful gaze fell on a lovingly crafted display of bendy straws, "_everything _you see."

Bubblegum's fingers were hot inside her mittens. Peeling them away, she looked about again and admitted, "I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I understand. These"—she considered, groped for a word, and settled on—"_items_ mattered to people?"

The shopkeeper nodded. "That ball," he said, and pointed at something behind the princess. She pivoted to see. In a jumble of plastic bowling pins and just beside a bin of painted flowerpots there was a red sphere, melon-sized and unassuming. "That ball," repeated the imp, "once belonged to a boy who loved it more than anything else in the world. Loved the sound it made when he kicked it, actually." Pursing his lips, the shopkeeper sucked in a breath and expelled it again in a clucking _whoosh-snk_. The noise reverberated through the shop's looming shelves, through its leaning racks. It was simultaneously terrible and wonderful, and Bubblegum shivered despite her layers.

"It rolled too far, once," finished the shopkeeper. "Eventually it ended up here."

For a moment Bubblegum said nothing. She studied the imp's face: waited for the customary ear tug that meant a fib. When none came, she frowned—either he was telling the truth or wholeheartedly believed the butterscotch he was feeding her.

"What about that?" she ventured finally. She gestured to a glitter of green on a hook over his shoulder.

It was the shopkeeper's turn to pivot. Reaching to take in hand the green thing, he flared it for her to see: a sequined coin purse. "A bottomfeeder from a grandmother's pocketbook," he asserted. "She only brought it to light occasionally, but when she did it was to let her grandchildren reach in for a caramel or a coin. Gave her such a thrill, to see their little hands come out with prizes and their faces light up too. Shame"—and he sighed, snapping the purse shut with a horrific _clack_—"but she misplaced this at some point and it—"

"Ended up here," concluded Bubblegum. There was an unwelcome taste in her mouth, sickly sweet and soft. Caramel, if she dared let herself think it. The shop was very warm. Unzipping her jacket, she told the imp—whose earlobes were still unmolested—with all the politeness she could summon, "Pardon me, sir—you've been very kind explaining, but…"

She left off. _But you could be full of it_, she wanted to say. _You probably _are _full of it._ Only years of diplomatic training kept her comment cloistered.

The shopkeeper smiled. His fangs flickered in the lamplight. "But I could be making it up as I go, right?" he put in for her. "I could be pulling your leg."

"You could be," agreed the princess, and actually meant _You are, you are, you are. _Her feet were still on the doormat. One step back would free her and she was tempted to take it. Disappointed as she was to find the shop a bust, there was plenty of daylight left and hundreds of blocks as yet unexplored in the market. Surely there were other places better than this one, other businesses that sold _actual _items without concocted histories—

The shopkeeper held up his hands. His palms were smooth, lineless and unwrinkled, his fingertips rounded. He said, "Skepticism is a common reaction. Not to mention it's an expected one from you. You're a scientist, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am. And I'm sorry, but—"

"But you need proof." It wasn't a question. Tipping his head, his smile smoother at the edges now—indulgent—the imp put in simply, "I can provide it."

The claim sent a prickle down Bubblegum's spine. Anticipation—dread? An unhappy marriage of both? Draping her jacket over her arm, she persisted, "How?"

In answer, he stuck out a hand between them and said, "Something of yours. Something important to you. Give it to me and I'll tell you why you treasure it so." He added, "I'll give it back. I promise."

"I don't have anything I feel very strongly about with me at the moment," Bubblegum demurred. She took a half-step back, tired of the shop's heat, its weirdness—its attendant especially.

He made no move to follow her. He only lifted his eyebrows and asked, "Are you sure?"

For a brief, lightning-flash moment, Bubblegum _was_ sure. Just as quickly she wasn't, for curiosity was a hard creature to deny, and reluctantly she dropped her free hand into the pocket of her jeans and felt around for something, for anything. Her fingers closed over a hard plastic triangle a bit larger than a lollipop's head.

Of course.

Stifling a sigh, Bubblegum pulled free the guitar pick and offered it over to the waiting shopkeeper. "I suppose I can't pass up a harmless experiment," she admitted.

"An inquiring mind must always seek answers," concurred the imp. He plucked the pick away and palmed it, worrying it through his odd green fingers. It was black, its edges worn from use and pocket friction—against his flesh it nevertheless gaped like a hole. Like a bloodless wound.

The shopkeeper closed his eyes. Rocked on the balls of his feet: once, twice. "Hm," he said, and followed easily with, "she left it by mistake. Meant to put it in her pocket, probably—it caught on her belt and bounced out again. Neither of you noticed. You were too busy kissing her goodbye to see it, and her fingers were too busy climbing under your shirt to feel its absence."

Bubblegum's breath died in her chest.

Giving no indication he was aware of the princess's shock, the imp went on after the briefest pause, "She got tangled in the curtains. You two laughed forever, or it _felt _like forever, and you thought your butler was probably getting suspicious and that's when she pulled it down. The curtain," clarified the shopkeeper. "She draped it around the two of you and pulled you close, and she put her hand over your mouth and said—

_Shut up Bonnibel, shut up or I'll make you shut up ssssh you are such a loudmouth, geez shut up_

"—and when you dared her to—

_Make me, Marcy—make me c'mon I'll bet you can't make me_

"—she—"

Bubblegum's breath returned in a rush. Bloodthunder pulsing in her ears, she lunged forward and snatched back the pick from the imp, fingers slick with sweat. The shop was jungle-hot now, throbbing and humid; the lanternlight shivered viridian and there were tears in her eyes, dripping unchecked down the sides of her face. "Stop," she commanded. It came out a croak and she furled her hand protectively over the pick, ignoring the sting as it bit into her palm. "Just stop," she begged.

The shopkeeper sighed—not mockingly, but apologetically. Bubblegum got the idea that stopping the pick's story wasn't an option: not for him, not for her either. Maybe skipping parts of it was okay, though, because he persisted in what passed for a gentle murmur, "You found it a few months ago when you were cleaning your room. You have servants to tidy up so you don't really need to do it yourself, and you're not messy anyway, but—"

Bubblegum dropped her jacket, her mittens, her scarf and plunged her freed hand over her ear. Because she refused to release the pick too, however, she could still hear the shopkeeper.

"—you were doing it to distract yourself. You were trying to keep your mind occupied with thoughts that weren't about her, about her hair and her eyes and the shape her shadow made on the wall, and you swept under the bed and the pick came flying out in a cluster of dust with a little clattering sound. _Spik-spik-spik-skkkkt_." He paused. Bubblegum didn't see why—by now she'd squeezed her eyes shut against the sight of the shop and its attendant.

"You didn't know what it was at first," he whispered, and his voice was kind. _Kind_. "So you leaned down. You picked it up. The instant it touched your fingers you remembered, and the strength ran out of your legs and you clutched it and cried. Cried like you're crying now. And as much as it hurt then to find it and hold it, every day since you've absently put it into your pocket to carry it with you wherever you go, because it feels a little like she's still with you that way."

He stopped. Chest tangled with sobs, Bubblegum pried open her eyes and blinked away thick, angry tears. The shopkeeper wasn't smiling—wasn't gloating. Instead there were lines around his small, puckered mouth and his gaze glittered with sympathy, which was almost _worse _than smugness, and Bubblegum hiccupped and said with as much dignity as she could muster, "Yes. Yes, all right. You've proven q-quite enough, _thank _you."

She knelt, smearing her arm over her face to dry it. Collecting her things, she wadded them into a haphazard bundle and stood again. She wanted out of this wretched shop—wanted to put as much distance between herself and the kind-eyed imp as possible. She had no intention of lingering—she'd shrug on her winter gear outside.

"Majesty?" The shopkeeper flared his cursed hands. "Majesty, you must know I didn't say those things to hurt you. My talent binds me to telling an item's story once it's been asked for—that's all. I am terribly sorry this particular story was painful for you—"

"I'm not angry with you," Bubblegum said, and it was true. She was _furious_. Thrusting the pick back into her pocket, she fumbled for the doorknob behind her and managed, "I'm sorry, sir—I should leave. I don't see how any of your items would be beneficial to me at all. I mean, I haven't lost anything you can give back, so—"

She found the doorknob. Unable to mask a hiss of relief, she spun it and stepped to leave the shop.

A touch on her shoulder stopped her. Glancing over said shoulder, Bubblegum found the shopkeeper offering her two things: a raised index finger and a handkerchief. "Maybe I don't have anything you've lost," he admitted. "But what if I told you I had something someone else is missing? Something a little more noticeable," he hedged, "than an absent guitar pick?"

A burst of wind trickled through the crack in the door and chilled the remnant tears on Bubblegum's face. Instinctively she sniffled, and an ember of indignation flared to life low in her belly. "You have something of Marceline's?" she asked. "You have something of hers here?"

The imp didn't bother with teasing maybes. He answered, "Yes," pressed the handkerchief into Bubblegum's hand, and stepped back. A moment later he was gone, fast disappearing into the shop's maze of shelves.

For a moment Bubblegum stood at the door. A knife of cool daylight spilled in through its opening. The arm nearest it was knotted and purple, all gooseflesh.

She felt the press of the pick through her jeans, insistent. Almost tender. Almost like the whisper of a fang over—

"Twizzlers," she muttered. Pulling the door closed again, Bubblegum turned and followed the shopkeeper.


	2. Part II

**A/N: **And here we go again!

**Words: **2,860

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**FOUND – [Part II]**

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Back, back, back—through aisles and corridors and twisting, turning paths in the forest of shelves Bubblegum trailed the shopkeeper. The farther she went, the dimmer it got—the space for lanterns simply ran out. Baggage too proved a problem: her jacket scraped over shelves and her scarf snagged on hooks, and eventually she left them both beside a crate full of compasses—most broken—and hurried after the imp's vague silhouette in the gloom. She could barely see him.

"It's around here somewhere." His voice floated back to her, ephemeral and faint. "I know it is. Hmm—perhaps this way…" He turned and she caught the shine of his skin, a brief cut of olive, before he shifted and sank thoroughly into the darkness.

Stumbling over something that felt like a wagon, Bubblegum called after him, "Wait! Wait, where are you? I can't see—"

Her foot came down on empty air. With a yelp she pitched forward, and she might have taken a nasty spill had the imp's hand not darted to her shoulder to steady her. "Careful," came the caution. Two thin pinpoints of light pricked the murk. They were his eyes, Bubblegum realized with a start, burning in an animal's simmering regard. "There are stairs," he continued. His fingers feathered down her arm to her wrist, where they curled. "I'll lead you."

His flesh was like a paper's rasp, thin and warm, and Bubblegum stifled an anxious shiver. Could he read her the same way he could read the objects on his shelves, she wondered—could he see her story unfolding back to its start? Were her secrets, what few she had, as visible to him as words on an open book's bare page?

If he suddenly knew of Bubblegum's hidden desire to experiment with fur-lined handcuffs, the imp gave no indication. He only provided, "Twelve steps—the first one is here," and administered to her fingertips the briefest tug. "Take it slow. As you'll feel, they're quite narrow."

And they _were _narrow, scarcely wide enough for a footfall. The princess crept gingerly after the shopkeeper, her free hand pressed to the wall lining the slim staircase. She hedged, "Where are we going?"

"Cellar." The answer was prompt and carried with it an echo's glimmer. "The shop's crowded, you know—items we've had a while eventually get shunted down here to make display room for newer things. But don't worry!" His voice rose, cheerful. "We never throw anything out! After all, given the nature of our inventory, that would be barbaric."

They reached the bottom of the staircase. The imp's fingers slipped from their grip about Bubblegum's arm and she was left alone in a sea of blackness, unable to discern even the faintest shape. Her stomach fluttered unpleasantly.

"Sir?" she chanced.

"A moment, a moment!" he said. "Just looking for the—_aha_!"

_Click_. A riot of brightness fell across the cellar from a bulb in the ceiling. Bubblegum caught a flash of color before she shut her eyes instinctively against the light.

"Apologies," the shopkeeper demurred. "But it must be here, surely. There's no other place more appropriate."

Little by little the princess worked her eyes open again. There were no shelves here—no looming racks or teetering ledges. The cellar stretched out in a scape of queer pastel softness.

It was full of toys.

Teddybears, rocking horses, dolls, even a giant stuffed velveteen lobster complete with curled felt feelers: they all stared unseeingly at Bubblegum from countless piles heaped at least as high as she was tall. Startled, the princess turned in a slow half-circle to survey the collection. Her elbow jostled the nearest mound, and a mouse plush missing an ear and eye apiece rolled down it and ended up at her ankle. Leaning down to pick it up, Bubblegum cradled it. It was small, meant more for a child's hands than hers. She ventured, "Marceline lost a toy?"

Already waist deep in a sea of velour elephants, the shopkeeper glanced back at the princess and nodded. There was stuffing stretched over his ear like a cobweb. "In a way, yes. She didn't exactly misplace it." He bent again, delving an arm up to the elbow into the toys. Something emitted a faint squeal. "It's quite unique—the toy, I mean," he insisted, shifting several of the elephants aside, "and I'll know it when I see it, I'm almost positive. Though it's admittedly been years since I laid eyes on it—"

"What did you mean just then?" interrupted Bubblegum. "If Marceline didn't misplace it, how did she lose it?"

The imp hesitated. His hands paused in their careful maneuvers over the elephants—his cheek tightened. "Well," he allowed, "if I recall correctly, it was stolen from her."

The bulb overhead flickered. Hundreds—no, _thousands_—of tiny plastic eyes seemed to blink as one, and Bubblegum's heart did a funny sort of clenching thing high up in the left corner of her ribs. So what if her relationship with Marceline was dead and buried, washed away, closed? So what if all she had left of the vampire was a worn guitar pick and a lousy t-shirt too long to be anything but a pajama top?

She still _cared _about Marceline.

"Stolen," she said. And again, "Stolen." Words threatened to stick in her mouth. They usually did when she was angry. "You _knowingly_ purchased stolen goods."

Straightening, the imp turned and looked at the fuming princess. He brushed his fingers down his front, flicking away dust; his eyes held hers a moment and fluttered elsewhere next. He did at least have the decency to look uncomfortable. "Not purchased," he disagreed. "_Bartered_ for. Bartered. Erm. Yes."

Enraged and horrified both, Bubblegum gaped for a moment at the shopkeeper. She said when she could manage it, "She would _kill _you if she knew. She would—she would _skewer _you. And I have half a mind to—to just _punish _you myself!" She lifted her hands and found them clenched into fists already, their knuckles flushed violet. The mouse plush compressed like a marshmallow in her fingers. "You are absolutely _despicable_! You enormous _jerk_—"

"I _told _you," the shopkeeper interjected, waving a stuffed duck at the princess, "that we are a unique business, Majesty. I maintained from the start that we are a _specialty _shop—"

"You." Leveling a finger at the imp, Bubblegum hissed, "You are a _thief_."

The bulb flickered a second time. Like candles with their wicks running out, the imp's eyes guttered as he closed them. He sighed. "If that's your judgment, so be it," he allowed, and went on, "but you must understand. We take items—stolen or not—because each new addition to this shop facilitates an important exchange. One item comes in. Another leaves." Making a walking motion with his fingertips, the shopkeeper finished, "One lost. But one found too."

"Ugh!" Bubblegum shook her head and snapped, "You're trying to make what you do here sound noble, but it _isn't_! If you want to place these items so badly, why don't you just contact their original owners? I mean, geez, you can see who they are! You've proven that!" Reflexively the princess reached to brush the shape of the pick in her pocket. Her sinuses throbbed—she almost wanted to cry again.

The imp winced. "Yes, that's true, but—"

"But _nothing_! It's not that hard to write a flippin' letter saying you've recovered misplaced property, is it?"

Back, forth, back, forth—the imp rocked uncomfortably on the balls of his feet, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. He looked at Bubblegum from beneath his scant lashes. At last he offered, "I could write to the original owners, yes. I could tell the child who once left that on the edge of a sandbox"—he pointed to the mouse plush still clutched in the princess's hand—"about my recovery of her beloved toy. But she's a few years older now, I'd wager. After all, things often take a while to end up here. She's probably forgotten it."

He paused. Bubblegum, because she did know the meaning of tact, waited.

"Just as well," the shopkeeper resumed eventually. "Her childhood wasn't a happy one—full of disappointed parents and bullying peers. Why remind her of those things? There's always the chance she's happier now."

Bubblegum said nothing. In her hands the mouse plush felt suddenly cold, and she brushed her thumb over the folded felt of its remnant ear.

"Things disappear all the time. We usually move on without them, Majesty. Loss has that result—though painful, it encourages us to shift in new directions. To grow. To change." The imp stepped over to her. He was close—not too much, really, but Bubblegum twitched uneasily back anyway. If he was offended by it, he pretended not to be and continued, "And maybe our things disappear sometimes, perhaps, because others need them more than we do."

He reached for her face—and then beyond it as Bubblegum stiffened, scrabbling quiet over a shelf somewhere behind her head. Bobbing forward and backward once more, he dropped a scrap of something into her free hand and said triumphantly, "There. I told you I'd know it when I saw it."

Bristling, Bubblegum looked down at her prize. It was a doll, all strips of bisque-colored cloth sewn clumsily together to form thin, floppy limbs and a plump torso too. Its lopsided, turnip-shaped head nodded. Its button eyes, one dangling on the end of a loose thread, glittered warmly in the basement's frail light.

Bubblegum considered, bemused and squinting. Was it supposed to be a bear? A cat? A monkey? Gently setting the mouse plush aside, she devoted both palms to the toy that had apparently once belonged to another monarch, turning it slowly over and back again. Liberal patches and splotches marked its soft hide. Dingy stuffing erupted in clouds from torn seams. A judiciously quick sniff revealed the dim but distinct smell of mildew, and against the heel of her hand Bubblegum could feel the toy's backside beginning to fray.

"This was Marceline's?" asked the princess, and already knew the answer was yes.

Her reply was the sound of a foot tapping the staircase. "Let's go back up," the shopkeeper suggested. "To the front. This bulb won't last long."

He took the steps up two at a time, and Bubblegum followed. Behind her the basement bulb flickered off of its own accord, plunging the room of toys back into darkness. She thought of the mouse plush alone there with nothing but dust and its silent fellows for company, and shivered.

In mere moments they were back at the shop's fore. Heaving Bubblegum's coat, scarf, and mittens onto an empty shelf nearby the door—apparently he'd thought to pick them up along the way—the imp sighed and looked askance at the princess.

Bubblegum cradled Marceline's old toy protectively to her collar. It didn't smell just of mildew, she realized. There was earth in its scent too, a warm powdery crumbling hint of childhood long gone, crackling leaves and dirt and orange sunlight. "I'm not leaving without this," she asserted. And then, "I'm _not_."

The imp's mouth twitched toward a smile. He shrugged. "I expected you wouldn't want to, of course. I suppose we should"—and he turned to step behind a small pedestal, half-hidden by a stack of tattered puzzle boxes and coloring books—"talk business. What do you have to trade for him, Majesty?"

Bubblegum blinked. "Ah… him?"

"Certainly. His name is Hambo."

_Hambo_, recited Bubblegum silently. Curling her fingers tighter about the maybe-bear, she slanted her eyes and racked her brain. Had Marceline ever mentioned a Hambo? Had Marceline ever mentioned a toy _period_? She didn't think so, but there was a kind of familiarity about it—no, about _him _nonetheless. The swell of his softness in her hands was almost like—

"_Not so tight, Bonnibel, geez—my blood might not circulate anymore but that still freaking hurts—"_

Aloud she provided, hoarse, "I'm not sure I have anything to trade that you'd want." She tacked on grudgingly, "Sir."

Dropping his elbows onto the podium's meager surface, the shopkeeper frowned. "Hm. It's possible you don't," he acknowledged, "but not _extremely _likely. I require something you value almost as much as your friend valued Hambo. That is the shop's policy."

"How am I supposed to know how much she—"

"He was her favorite thing," the imp afforded easily. "Her favorite thing in the world. For a long time."

They surveyed one another, princess and shopkeeper. Given no reason to believe he was lying at all, Bubblegum replied, "Why would I carry around anything like that?"

"Why wouldn't you?" the imp shot back. His eyes strayed low. Bubblegum followed his gaze to her pocket.

The pick inside was an abrupt ember, burning slow and sinister against her thigh.

There was a struggling, strangled stream of quiet. Bubblegum broke it by delving her fingers down into her jeans and pulling the pick free again. She dropped it on the podium—_spkkk-spkkk-spikkk_—and said thickly, "That's your price, isn't it?"

Out darted the imp's smooth green hand. The pick vanished in the coil of his fingers. When he opened them next it was gone—_lost_—and he affirmed, "It is," and warned her immediately following, "all transactions are final once agreed upon. You understand."

The last bit of the statement tipped aright, a prod. A question. An opportunity to take back the pick and leave: to pretend she'd never seen Hambo.

Swallowing down the hard lump in her throat, Bubblegum shook her head. "It's done," she consented.

"Would you like a receipt then, Majesty? Or a bag? He might not do well in the wintry weather." The shopkeeper stretched out his hands for the toy. "He _is _quite ancient—"

Recoiling, the princess folded her upper body down over the doll and snapped, "You won't touch him _again_, thank you very much." She shifted Hambo to one arm and shrugged into her winter gear with the other. After her jacket was back in place, she slipped the toy tenderly into the slot between her breasts, drew up the zipper, and made to rewrap her scarf. "You know, sir," she muttered angrily into the fabric, "there's something I don't understand about this transaction, to be honest. Maybe you can explain it to me?"

The shopkeeper smiled. He leaned over the podium. "I always attempt to satisfy my customers. I welcome any questions."

"Based on what you said earlier, it isn't typically your practice to return items to their original owners." Bubblegum finished with the scarf. Tugging it tight, she pressed, "Isn't that true?"

"It is."

"Then why did you tell me about Hambo in the first place?" demanded the princess. "Why did you show him to me if you knew I was just going to give him back to Marceline?"

Palming his chin, the shopkeeper flicked his eyes ceilingward and observed, "How interesting! Is that _really _what you intend to do with him? You're going to take him back to her?"

Bubblegum cried, incredulous, "What _else_ would I do with him? She—she probably _misses _him! And I'm sure she'd be happy to have him back and I'm not just going to let him _rot _here because… because I—"

Lifting his hand, the imp cut in delicately, "I don't mean to offend you with my surprise, Majesty, but if your only wish was to see Hambo returned to his original owner, why did you not simply write her an anonymous letter telling her he was here? Why give up something you treasure for someone who is no longer a part of your life?"

Bubblegum stared at the shopkeeper, mute. Heat crawled up her cheeks—furled through her chest too, tight vines of it. "I," she whispered, licking her lips. "I…"

The imp waited a moment. Two. On the crest of the third and in the wake of Bubblegum's flustered silence, he flared his hands and professed innocently, "I had no idea of your intentions. I only thought you might be interested in Hambo because you once knew Marceline. However…" A shadow or a smile played over the shopkeeper's lips. Because of the lanterns flickering from on high, it was hard to tell which. "Best of luck, Majesty," he said.

Cheeks burning, Bubblegum bobbed a brief thank-you bow and fled.

Out: she scurried into the cold, into the whirling snow and laughing passersby and the fading day. The sky was gray with evening's approach and another squall, probably. Against her chest the toy was a buffer against the weather, a stubby circle of warmth.

_Ting-ting-ting_. The shop's bell sang goodbye. Looking over her shoulder at it, Bubblegum saw the establishment's sign clearly now even as the snowfall around her thickened into flakes each the size of coins. _Finders Never Keepers_, it proclaimed. There was a subheading too: _You won't BELIEVE what we've got in here!_

Barking a short laugh into the breeze, Bubblegum ghosted a palm over her discovery and hurried toward her ride home.


	3. Part III

**A/N: **And it's done! I hope you enjoy it. =)

**Words: **3,275

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**FOUND – [Part III]**

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It took Bubblegum three hours to get home on the Morrow. Her fingers were stiff and sore in their mittens when she pried open her castle's door, her hair a massive rigid pink icicle too. She spent half the night thawing it, leaning partway over her bureau to let the wet drip free into a basin Peppermint Butler changed every time the clocktower's chime added another rung to the evening's ladder. "You'll get sick," he fretted, bundling her in blankets from toes to tonsils. "A cold at least. Mark my words, princess—tomorrow or the next day you'll regret flying here in that storm."

"You're probably right," agreed Bubblegum, rifling through her bureau's topmost drawer. She found a bit of paper in it. Pressing it over her desk, she fingered its corner nervously and requested, "Pass me that pen, please? No, the other. The purple… mm—yes, that one." A rill of melting slush ran down the nape of her neck, pooled in her shoulder's dip. "Oh"—she flicked her servant a distracted smile—"that's all. Go rest. It's late." She added as he hesitated at the door, "I'll be fine. Thank you."

Peppermint Butler _was _right—two days after her journey back from the Ice Kingdom, Bubblegum's chest was taut with phlegm and her head heavier than a pumpkin jawbreaker. Before tucking herself into bed to wrestle off the bug, though, she pressed a sealed letter into the hand of her kingdom's most talented messenger. She assigned him an order only ten words long: "Find where Marceline was last. Leave this for her there."

"Yes, Majesty." The messenger sequestered the letter into his vest. Lifting his gelatinous eyebrows, he hesitated, tapped his varicolored fingers down his lapel. He ventured finally, "This might be presumptive, but… why don't you just get your pal Finn to do this? He and Marceline—they're tight. He'd know where she is now better than I can ever guess."

_Verdammit. _Gummies were among the more inquisitive members of her people—Bubblegum should have expected the messenger would ask questions. "Marceline and I aren't friends anymore," she said. It came out harsh, partly because of the gunk in her throat and partly because it was salt-wound true. Stifling the urge to wince, Bubblegum softened her tone and clarified, "We aren't friends anymore, but Finn _wants _us to be so badly and I… I don't want to put him in the middle of this."

Silently she added, thinking of noodles and Door Lords and harmonizing melodies drifting sky high, _This is between me and Marceline. No one else._

Pressing his palm flat over his vest and the letter inside, the messenger affirmed, "Understood. Rest assured, Majesty—I'll exercise the utmost discretion."

The princess thanked him, saw him off, and settled back to wait.

Her bed rest was over in four days—the cold lingered eight, sniffles and stuffed nostrils and tissues wadded into pockets. Two weeks after being sent to deliver the letter, the messenger returned and said he'd left it in a mailbox at one of Marceline's residences nearby the Fire Kingdom. Bubblegum remembered it as being in the middle of a sprawling orchard, a tiny tin-roofed cottage ensconced in the shade of yellow-dappled canopies stretching up toward the clouds like arms. "She wasn't there herself," the messenger told Bubblegum, "but I looked in the window. I could see a bowl of fresh apples on the table. Stems still on and all."

Bubblegum took this as a promising sign and watched her window at night hopefully, but the month nevertheless whittled away and took slices of the moon with it.

Of Marceline there was never a whisper.

Time passed in a slurry of storms, some of which brought haphazard slush. A week saw the season ebbing from winter to not-quite-spring. In the Kingdom's gardens the cotton candy trees put out white wispy buds, and the sheen of frost on the grass in the mornings dulled to nothing more than a dewy shine. Bubblegum took two more shopping trips. She brought back a bracelet the first time and a magical flute for Lady Rainicorn the second. Because it could sprout warts on enemies up to ten miles distant, the flute provided the princess and her friend a rash of giggle fits. It also provided the Ice King's dermatologist an unexpectedly hefty paycheck.

Bubblegum forgot the letter she'd written to Marceline sometimes. She had a realm to run, after all—people to herd, experiments to conduct, events to host. Her preoccupied mind worked from breakfast to bedtime and didn't often stop for personal issues, and it was easy to be busy. Duty demanded her attention.

The empty space in her pocket was impossible to ignore, though. And there was Hambo too, nestled comfortably with a few other stuffed animals on her bed's uppermost pillows. He was one of the last things she saw before sleep every night and one of the first she saw each morning as she woke, and even the briefest glimpse of him tugged forth memories of the short, sharp message she'd sent to her fellow monarch back when the trees outside had still been bare.

_I have something of yours_, she'd written._ It's very important. Please come get it._

But _was _Hambo still important to Marceline, really? Gazing at him in the small gray stretch before dawn, ticking off the days melting down into spring, Bubblegum traced her fingers over the velvet wibble of the toy's chin and decided that probably wasn't the right question.

"Am _I _still important to her?" she asked him, voice a whisper in the dark. "What's your analysis, Hambo?"

He didn't have one, as it turned out. He _did _have a very soft stomach, however, and Bubblegum shoved her face into it until she drifted into curious unsettled dreams of locked cellar doors and sullen gray skies.

The next morning came on in a drizzle that strengthened into a downpour by midday. Coupled with the yearly runoff from the Sugarcone Mountains, the sheer amount of wet put a strain on the levees in the Kingdom's lower corridors. Bubblegum devoted most of the day to issuing evacuation notices. "Better safe than sorry," she told a disgruntled doughnut family reluctant to leave their home on the plains. "Complain all you like, but I won't have you soggy and misshapen if I can help it. Follow the flags to higher ground! We've set up tents for you!"

Rain, rain, rain: showers and buckets and torrents of it, thundering harsh on her umbrella and soaking the ground sodden. The levees held but the lowland marshes flooded anyway. It took all Bubblegum's patience and effort to keep her people from dissolving into sheer panic as the rivers skirting the kingdom's borders bucked over their banks.

Just before nightfall the impromptu monsoon slackened. Seeing her people soothed, the princess slogged back to her castle covered in a skin of molasses and mud. "Don't," she insisted as Peppermint Butler rushed to help her. "Don't, no—please. I'm just going to bed."

"But—" protested the retainer.

Bubblegum passed over the crumpled ruin of her umbrella. "On second thought? Take this. And burn it_. _Burn it with _fire_. Okay? Yes—good."

She squelched up the stairs and down the hall to the door of her bedchamber, leaving wet filthy footprints behind. She was too exhausted to notice, much less care. She stepped into the room, kicked the door shut—locked it. A moment later found her peeling away her soaked garments one by one: first the boots, the laces bloated thick as snakes under her fingers. The rain slicker next. Shirt. Socks. Pants. She was fumbling for the hook of her bra when a shadow nearby her bureau rippled and purred, "That's a nice welcome, Bonnibel."

Bubblegum whipped around. Her bra, undone now, fell in a wet slithery clump over her foot. Her skin prickled and the room was chilly, and—

"Hey," Marceline resumed, half-laughing, "uhm. Wow. Your, uh. Your headlights." She snickered, made a flicking motion with her finger. "_Ping_! Talk about _on_, geez. Did you really miss me that much?"

Clapping her arms in a cage over her breasts, Bubblegum huffed, "It's _cold _in here," and stalked past the vampire's lean form to her closet. Rifling through it for a nightshirt—"No, not _that _one," she muttered under her breath, and stuffed her favorite deeper into her hamper—she rolled her shoulder toward Marceline. She glanced aside at the vampire.

Hovering in place, hands in her pockets, Marceline gazed coolly back. Her hair was shorter now than when Bubblegum had seen it last, cropped close to her ears and spiked in the front. It was wet. So were Marceline's clothes, sticking to her all over, and Bubblegum flushed and turned to hide her face behind her closet's door.

"Here," she provided after a strangled pause. Into the space between them she thrust a towel. "You—you look like you could use it. And I, uhm. I'm pretty sure you still have some clothes here. I didn't… you know. I didn't throw them out or anything. I-if," she stammered, "you wanted to change."

There was a pause, brief—a sigh next, and a rustle of fabric. Marceline plucked the towel from Bubblegum's grasp. "If you wanted me to come get naked with you, you could've just said so in the letter," she muttered. Bubblegum peeked around the closet door in time to see Marceline shrug out of her top. "I might've skipped my shows and gotten here sooner."

"I am _not _naked!" protested the princess.

Marceline's eyes, glowing like coals in the dark, skipped sidelong to Bubblegum and away again. They were crinkled at the corners—she was smiling. Bubblegum's stomach fluttered. "You're pretty close," the vampire disagreed. "Wet, see-through panties don't really count as clothing."

"They are _not _see-through—" Glancing down, Bubblegum discovered that they _were _quite translucent, actually. She darted farther into the shade of her closet. Glaring hotly around the door's jamb at Marceline, she hissed, "You are still _utterly _distasteful."

"Whoa there! _You're _the one who invited me here, undressed in front of me, and then suggested I do a strip tease!" Grinning, Marceline tossed the sodden knot of her bra and t-shirt at Bubblegum. She shimmied out of her pants not a moment later, struggling with the wet denim as it caught on her ankles. "And by the way," she grunted, "nice undies. Cute little happyface poptarts."

"Oh shut up. At least mine aren't covered in _rockets_, Miss Boy Shorts."

Marceline scoffed, "Whatever. You are _so _jealous of my rockets." She dug her thumb beneath her underwear's elastic band, snapped it for good measure, and skimmed them off. Bubblegum caught a glimpse of slick gray thighs, a long scar running high up one's inside, before Marceline wrapped herself in the towel.

Numbly the princess found and wriggled into a nightshirt. She replaced her damp undergarments with a fresh pair, debated on socks—decided she didn't need them. A thin quiet descended on the bedchamber, punctuated only by the scuffle of cloth as Marceline dried her hair and the rasp of her elbow into Bubblegum's too. She drifted close to peer into the closet.

"Your stuff is there," Bubblegum said, and pointed. "It's just a flannel pullover. I think maybe a pair of pants too—the drawstring kind you liked to sleep in before." She took a breath. Marceline smelled like wind, like wet, like wild. "Uhm. You had shows?" Bubblegum nudged.

"Yeah." Marceline shrugged. "Couple of my pals in the Fire Kingdom asked me to tour with them." She dropped the towel—took the flannel and pulled it on, and reached for the pants after. "More grunge than I usually go for, but I needed a change of scenery for a while. You know." She looked at Bubblegum askance. "Had some stuff on my mind. Especially after, uh… the whole incident with the Door Lord."

She touched down on the carpet, stepping into the pants. A clump of wet hair fell like a comma over the smolder of her eyes and Bubblegum, watching it, blurted thoughtlessly, "I missed you."

Marceline froze. Her eyes widened—her lips parted, mouth ajar such that her fangs hung in icicles from its rim. A floorboard creaked underfoot. "What?" she whispered. Her cheeks sucked the shadows from the room, dark and bruising darker still.

Bubblegum swallowed. Outside the rain started up again in earnest, gurgling in the gutters. "I missed you," she said again. Her pulse crawled in her throat, all horrified thorns. Why was she blabbing this _now_? Having started, she found it impossible to stop. "I—uhm. I wanted to. To see you. After the Door Lord thing. Before that, too. But—"

_But I was too stubborn. I was too proud. I thought you'd come back anyway after all those hurtful things I said to you and you didn't because come on, why would you, you're not a glutton for punishment and I didn't know how to apologize and every time I went to your house to try you weren't there and your dog growled at me and when I did happen to run into you, geez, you always looked so happy without me and I just—_

These things she tried to say, but she was exhausted and scared and her tongue fumbled in her mouth, useless. Marceline stared at her. The princess's stomach lurched; her eyes stung, vision blurring. She bit down hard on her cheek's inside—she would _not _cry! Except she was already, a few sly, stupid tears dripping miserably down her face. _Perfekt_.

"I'm sorry," she managed. "I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry, Marceline."

Rain on the window, tapping. It sounded almost like the pick had hitting the shopkeeper's podium weeks ago, _spkk-spkkk-spikkkk_, and Bubblegum wondered—disjointedly, fleetingly—if she'd just lost something else.

Marceline straightened. She walked past Bubblegum—toward the window. For a terrible instant it seemed she would open it and leave, but she stopped before she got there and leaned down to search through the wet heap of her pants. Yanking something from the pocket, she turned to Bubblegum again and held it up. It was the letter the princess had written and ordered delivered weeks prior, its top torn open, Bubblegum's signature an illegible smear now on the seal.

"I thought," Marceline began, and broke off to cup her palm over her mouth. The shadow of her shoulders trembled. Was she crying too? Making a sound that suspiciously resembled a sniffle, the vampire cleared her throat and attempted, her voice a rasp through the slats of her fingers, "I thought you just wanted me to get all my stuff and go. I thought you never wanted to talk to me again."

"No!" denied the princess immediately. "No—_no_, I never—" She stepped toward the vampire and Marceline moved closer to her too, enough that there was only an arm's length between them. Reaching into it, the princess seized at Marceline's trailing sleeve and admitted, "I've wanted to talk to you since you left." Tears clogged the sentiment. "I've wanted to _see_ you," she insisted, the words syrupy, stuck, "and I was _stupid_ and I'm sorry, I am just _so _sorry—"

Marceline dropped the letter. It fluttered down between them and then the vampire lunged, wrapping her arms tight about Bubblegum to thrust her face into the smaller monarch's shoulder. Staggering backward and clutching instinctively at the vampire, the princess opened her mouth to say something, to say _anything_, and Marceline sobbed into her throat instead and tied Bubblegum's heart in knots.

"Oh," she said thickly, heat and wetness on her face. She lifted a hand to card it through the other monarch's damp hair. "Oh, Marceline. Ssssh. Sssh."

"Don't you _ssssh _me," snarled the vampire. Her hands tightened in Bubblegum's nightshirt, nails biting through the thin fabric and into the skin beneath. "Don't you _dare_. You _dweeb_. You freaking _chumsucker_"—she choked, half laughing, half crying—"torturing me all this time, making me think you _hated _me—"

Bubblegum dropped her face into Marceline's hair, chest hitching. "I'm sorry," she repeated. "I'm _sorry_—"

"Oh shut up, c'mon," Marceline interrupted. From the darkness her hand came questing, slow, maybe scared. It furled over Bubblegum's cheek. Her thumb slid in the wetness there. "I get it—geez," she whispered. "It's okay."

The strength ran out of Bubblegum's legs. Forgiveness was that easy? Lightheaded in relief, she sank to her knees and dragged Marceline with her, breath coming in hoarse, quivery gasps. The scientist in her screamed for confirmation. "It is?" she chanced. "It—it's okay? You don't hate _me_?"

In answer, Marceline snuffled out laughter and pressed her brow to Bubblegum's. Her lashes fluttered soft against the hollow of the smaller monarch's temple and she hesitated, staring, her eyes huge fever-bright cherries in the bedchamber's gloom. "Nah, babe." Feathering her lips gently over Bubblegum's cheek next, she denied, "I couldn't hate you. You're way too cute, y'know? And—and _dang_, Bonnibel, I mean, you're my best _friend_."

Her mouth worked for a moment. There were no more words in it, though, and in their absence the vampire drove her face into the skin beneath Bubblegum's ear. Her back jumped and Bubblegum, seeing it, started crying again too, and they clutched at each other until the wet ran out—both at the window and between them.

For a while—a good, long, stretching while—they were silent.

"Are we okay?" That was Marceline at last, raw and terrified but determined too. "Bonnibel, I gotta know. Are we okay now?"

Bubblegum nodded, mute. She clenched her fingers tighter over the handfuls she had of Marceline's flannel.

A sigh—of relief. Bubblegum closed her eyes and echoed it, letting her cheek roll into the vampire's shoulder. She was squinting at the rising slope of Marceline's throat when the other monarch ventured, ginger, "Uhm… what _else _are we?"

Lifting her head, the princess studied Marceline's face, blotchy and wet and puffy even in the shadows. Hers probably didn't look much better, she reflected. Not after weeping away months of unpleasant emotions—guilt, anxiety, longing.

"I know what I want," she admitted. "But if you don't, it's fine—I was immature and cruel—"

"I ran away," pointed out the vampire. "And I'm older than you. I could've been the mature one. Maybe _should've_."

"I," Bubblegum allowed, "let you leave."

They looked at each other, the princess gnawing her lip and Marceline half-smiling. "Okay," the vampire acknowledged. "We both suck. Let's fix it and kiss."

"Yes," agreed Bubblegum. "Yes, that is a _fine_ idea."

It was an even finer kiss.

When it was over, and all the kisses afterward too, Marceline grinned into Bubblegum's collar and asked, "Hey, Bonnibel?"

"Mmm?" the princess replied distractedly. She arched. "That—that feels nice, Marceline."

Marceline chuckled, dusk in the sound. "Good. It's about to feel nicer, just wait." But then, "Your letter. You said you had something important of mine." Her tone came out puzzled. "Not the pullover or the pants, right? Was it a metaphorical apology? Because if it was, hey, great—I'm not complaining." She plucked at the nightshirt's hem. Her fangs rasped slow over Bubblegum's skin. The princess shivered.

She stood then, tugging Marceline aloft too. The nightshirt's buttons clicked; the folds parted and the room was still chilly. Marceline's appreciative grin drew from Bubblegum a slow, shy smile.

"Before you make me forget everything but you," she muttered fondly, tweaking the vampire's fingers, "come over here. I have something to show you."


End file.
